


Like Cracked Porcelain

by Hannibals_Jorts



Series: Like Cracked Porcelain [2]
Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Love, Marquis de Sade - Freeform, Overwrought People are Overwrought, Romance, Science Fucktion, The Little Man In the Boat, Undead, Vaginal Fingering, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7422271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibals_Jorts/pseuds/Hannibals_Jorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vanessa’s mysterious new love is revealed, as is how they met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Cracked Porcelain

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of the "Like Cracked Porcelain" series.

At Grandich place, a tall figure sat on the divan in the guest bedroom, reading a book so ferociously its hands left indentations on the leather. Now and then, its head drifted toward the painting over the mantle.

The painting was a profusely masculine piece showing a bloody operation in a military hospital. No doubt, its grisly subject matter had appealed to Sir Malcolm.

_I shall never understand the fascination the unremarkable hold for the grotesque. Or why they pay money to gawk at us in freak shows, but spit and curse if we speak to them on the street._

His gaze lingered on the rude stitching and piles of parts. With an effort, he forced himself back to the book.

_I shouldn’t let it trouble me, and yet… Perhaps I can’t believe this is happening. Only two days ago I knocked on the door to ask how my friend fared, and found her fallen in despair; she brought me in without a moment’s thought._

The task of cleaning the house began simply enough, with him piling up all the dirty dishes in the kitchen into the sink, and washing them as she told him of her misery. Soon, she moved forward with a clean rag to dry them.

“What next?” he said, once the dishes were washed.

“There are some upstairs,” she said, and together they brought down the grimy, greasy flatware and washed everything together.

“What next?” he said again. Each time they finished a task, he asked the same thing, and bit by bit, the house was set to rights.

_She bathed, and ate, and dressed, and then we sat down to talk; first of poetry, and then…_

 

“Thank you for all your help today, Mr. Clare. It would have taken a week by myself.”

“It was nothing, Miss Ives.”

“On the contrary, it was everything. Many would have talked, and some would have listened, but it is a rare person who rolls up their sleeves and sets to the hard work of life.” She was reclining on the divan in the study, one arm thrown back and the other holding one of her fragrant cigarettes in a silver clip. Black satin and lace encased her long, languid frame, and she was a far cry from the nightclothes-clad shut-in had had found only hours before.

He shrugged, pleased. “Thank you, Miss Ives.”

“Vanessa,” corrected her low voice. A fire burned in the grate, its light gleaming on the cut-glass tumblers full of Sir Malcolm Murray’s amber whiskey. “Why did you come here?”

From his place on the floor, his back pressed against the divan’s front, he stared into the fire. The thought of touching her was in the back of his mind, as always, but it seemed as likely as reaching his fingers out and curling them around the moon.

“I needed to know you were well,” he replied, quite honestly. “When we parted, you spoke of being surrounded by a shroud. I confess I feared for you.”

“But you were going far away,” she prompted. “What happened to your plans?”

“Well, I—“

Her hand began stroking the back of his head. He stifled a gasp, and sat still.

 _Could Victor but harness the spark that jumps at her touch, he would populate the Earth with unholy monsters._ Then all thought of Victor was banished from his mind. _She’s being kind. Don’t mistake kindness for desire, as you’ve done before. She strokes you as she would a pet cat, and nothing more._

He gathered his thoughts. “I… couldn’t leave. Not knowing that such danger hung about you. Not you, my only and truest friend. I stayed in London and found work at the docks, to fill my days.”

The stroking continued. He allowed his lids to slip down, and leaned his head forward so that she might touch the back of his neck. A shudder ran through him, his breath sliding between his teeth.

The divan creaked. She shifted to lay her cigarette and clip on a blue-patterned dish on the table. “And your nights?”

“My nights are spent reading and trying not to be seen.”

“That is most sad.” Her hand slid down his neck to his shoulder, and squeezed it. Then it slipped away. “But in your nights here you shall find warmth, food, and good whiskey at least. There’s a guest room upstairs. And…” She trailed off.

_The hour is growing late, and she is probably tired. I forget how they tire, how their mortal bodies weary and must rest. I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep, now I think of it._

He wondered what had caught her attention. “And…?”

The divan creaked again. Curious, he turned to look.

She was sitting up, staring down at her hands as they slowly twisted against one another.

“Miss Ives?”

“Vanessa,” she reminded him.

“Vanessa,” he repeated, enjoying the feel of her name on his lips. “And please call me John. Please, what troubles you?”

“John, then… When you speak of me as a friend, as your truest friend… do you mean only that? That we might only ever be friends, and nothing more?”

Astounded, he dropped his eyes to the floor.

_Don’t say it, don’t say anything…_

“Every man dreams of what he cannot have, I suppose.” He started when he realized he’d said it aloud.

Again, he felt her hand on the back of his head, warm and alive like the sun on a fine day.

“Why should it only be a dream?”

Hardly daring, he turned, lifting his eyes to her face.

She looked pensive, her blue eyes haunted. “I will confess that when I’ve opened my heart, it has led to catastrophe, for all parties involved. But I would dare again to join the dance, if you would be my partner.”

He sat in stunned silence.

_She cannot mean…?_

“Your eyes are so beautiful. They burn in the darkness.” She tilted her head, saddened. “You will not join me? Forgive me for asking, then.”

“I don’t know the steps,” he whispered.

Encouraged, her hand slid to the enormous scar at his temple. Her soft, hot palm pressed to his gnarled skin in a touch more intimate than anything he’d felt in years. He gasped. Tension gripped his lower belly, and his member, a long-forgotten part of himself he normally ascribed as much interest in as a heel or an elbow, began to swell.

“Perhaps we could find the steps together,” she murmured, her face glowing in the firelight.

_“Yes.”_

He rose onto his knees, catching her cheeks in his hands. Her eyes closed and their mouths met, and she tasted of warm, salted peaches and life. He felt her hand at the waistband of his trousers, felt her hot knuckles brush his stomach as she pushed inside his pants. Her fingers touched his hard cock, sending a jolt through him.

_Oh God, it has been so long…_

Her hand wrapped around his shaft and he cried out in pleasure and disbelief.

Her other caught his wrist and guided it down, under layers of silk and linen, and up her sleek thighs to the hot join between. It was slick, the lips swollen and inviting. He turned his hand, curled his fingers, and slid his middle finger forward, seeking and finding the tiny spot that made her groan and pant. His finger made slow movements there, teasing.

An urgent sigh escaped her. He felt lightheaded with power at the sound, and pressed harder.

Her hand had wilted away from his cock, and was gripping his shoulder, but he didn’t care. Her throaty cries increased and she pressed her face into the hollow at his jaw, insisting he keep going, demanding he keep going. He closed his eyes and lost himself to anything but the movement of his fingers on her clit, and how she rocked against him in time with his strokes. She tightened as the tension built, her moans becoming breathy as he worked toward her end.

Her breath stopped. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. “Oh GOD,” she cried against his neck.

His eyes still closed, he stopped his hand, but didn’t remove it. She draped against him like a second skin.

 _“Ah…”_ A weak sound from the back of her throat raised goosebumps on his flesh. Her grip on his shoulder slackened, and she leaned away, her eyes closed above a smile of heartbreaking sweetness. She tipped back into the divan, her arms stretched out at her sides. He drew his hand back and rested it on her thigh, watching as she melted into the cushions.

_I am tumescent, but I don’t care. She looks so happy, so at peace…_

She writhed, curling her arms around her head and arching her back. “I am adrift in a sea of bliss, John Clare. Won’t you join me?”

He stood, his throbbing cock pressing against his trousers. He moved to open his pants, and hesitated.

She sat up, concerned. “What's wrong?”

“It’s… it’s just such an ugly thing, like cracked porcelain” he confessed, his hair hiding his face. “It looks like some tortuous thing the Marquis De Sade might have devised.”

She tilted her head, her eyes bright with mischief. “Why, John… Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? I _did_ have a book of his under my bed as a girl. The engravings were my favorite part.”

_Perhaps there’s another way…_

“May I lift you?” he asked, barely able to get the words out.

She nodded and threw her head back and arms out to her sides, like a prone ballerina.

He caught her under the arms and stood, lifting her easily into the air.

Uncertainty flickered across her face at his strength, and then delight. Her legs opened, her knees rising up around his sides. “Am I not heavy?” she asked, kissing him.

He caught her around the waist with his arm as his other hand busied itself with the front of his trousers. “Not at all.”

With his hand, he guided himself through the layers of fabric until his engorged head struck her upper thigh. From there, he pushed up the smooth, damp skin to lips that felt like wet velvet.

He hesitated, his brows pinching in worry as he looked up to her face.

“Please,” she hissed, the blue eyes welcoming. “I want all of you there is.”

_To be wanted… !_

He pushed forward.

Her head fell back and she let out a husky cry. He was afraid he had hurt her until she kissed him again, her thighs urging him on. Her tongue pushed his lips apart and stroked his own.

 _What a wonder that Victor did one thing right,_ he thought as he pushed again and again. _Tireless, I can please her as much as she likes._

“My corset,” she whispered into his ear, “Help me with it.”

He lifted her, sliding out with a tiny wet sound, and set her gently down on her feet.

She undid the buttons at the front of her dress, her pale fingers fluttering. The garment fell away, revealing her throat, shoulders, and the tops of her white breasts. Her torso was encased in a corset of gray satin and black velvet, her legs in a black satin underskirt.

_Perfect, she is so perfectly unmarked…_

He bent to kiss the hollow of her throat, and let his mouth trail down over her collarbones to the soft mounds. He luxuriated in their warmth and softness, running his cheek against them like a cat.

“Please, help me with it,” she insisted, guiding his hands to the busks at the front of her corset. “I want it off. I want you to see me.”

He slipped his thumbs down inside the corset’s top, feeling the hard steel and whalebone through his palms. Skin like fresh cream pressed against the sides of his hands with every breath she took.

_It feels so hateful, this thing she’s trapped inside._

He gripped the edges, fixing her blue eyes with his own.

“Wear nothing for me you would not wear for yourself.”

He ripped the corset apart. Its steel bones gave way like the withes of an old basket. Its busks exploded, flying across the room to land rattling on the floor, and its lacing shredded like dried grass. He dropped the two sides to the floor.

She gasped, and quickly slipped her underskirt down her long legs. Bare, her full breasts gleaming in the firelight, she pressed against him and he felt the hard pebbles of her nipples through his shirt as he held her.

_I wish to feel her against my skin, but better she not see me. It would spoil everything._

Crushed between them, freed from his trousers, his swollen cock strained.

“Lift me,” she told him, raising her hands to her head. She drew the ivory-headed pin out and dropped it. Her hair fell down in a silky cascade, cool against his fingers. “Lift me as you did before, as if we were dancing before the whole world!”

He felt himself grow even harder at the sight of her devil-may-care grin.

_I ache to be inside her._

He ran his hand down her hip to cup the taut cheek of her ass, then lifted her. Her arms surrounded his neck and she ran her legs up his sides, squeezing. Her thighs were scarcely open before her hot, wet cunt swallowed him. They gasped, pressing their foreheads together as his thighs flexed, trembling with excitement. He worked tirelessly, wishing he felt more of her skin against his own.

“I’ve… thought about you…” she moaned. “For so long…”

“And I you,” he whispered.

She sought his mouth, her tongue pushing inside and tasting him. Her eagerness sent a thrill through him, and he shivered. She broke away, stroking his head with both hands as he thrust.

He caught one of her hands and pressed the palm to his scar.

“Like that?” she asked.

The urgency of his stroke increased. He closed his eyes, his mouth falling open as he nodded.

“Yes,” she urged.

Heat crept up his stomach. He felt his lower belly tightening.

“Yes, do it,” she rasped between breaths. “Come inside me, spend yourself inside me.”

_I… I am…_

A strangled cry left his throat, and he froze. Dark motes spun across his vision. His head fell back as the air left his lungs in a great gout.

 _“Oh… God!”_ the atheist wept.

Afterward, he carried her to the divan and set her down gently, and took up his place on the floor beside her. She lay bare as easily as she did clothed. Soon, her breath became deep and even. 

_It will be dawn, in a few hours. And like all creeping things of the night, I should return to my lair. I do not belong here._

He pressed her hand in his.

She raised her head and smiled at him. "Forgive me, I was nearly asleep, just then." 

“I should go,” he heard himself say.

She started, her lovely face falling. “Where are you going?” she said, squeezing his hand. “Stay with me.”

He looked away, his hair falling in front of his face. “I shouldn’t—“

“Why?” She brushed his hair aside, cradling one cheek. She penetrated him with her gaze. “Please. Each time I’ve been with a man I have felt something scaly uncoil within my soul. Each time I opened my heart it led to catastrophe. But look! I am myself. Nothing unholy has been unleashed.”

“ _I_ am unholy,” he protested, near tears.

“How? Only God can make something holy or unholy.”

He tried to argue and her finger rose to his lips. “I want nothing more than to sleep beside you, to wake next to you in the morning, and wonder what the day holds in store. Today, someone told me to do one thing that makes me happy. Having you by my side when I wake would make me _very_ happy. Would you do me that courtesy, John Clare?”

_I would do everything you asked of me, forever._

He nodded.

Her finger slipped away, and a light, innocent kiss landed on his mouth. She took his hand and led him up the stairs.

 

_We spent the night in her iron-framed bed, she in her nightclothes and I in my shirt and trousers, as chaste as children. I held her as she slept, and soothed her when she cried out, or wept. This morning she asked if she might treat me to yet another kindness and replace my ruinous clothes._

He shifted. The movement brought the smell of her skin out of his own pores. He breathed deeply and reveled in it, gloried in it.

_It can’t be real. It’s a beautiful dream, and when she comes home and realizes what she’s brought into her life, it will end. I was a moment’s fascination, nothing more. Her offer to replace my torn clothing was only one of friendship, and perhaps some sense of obligation._

He flicked a page over, completely unaware of anything he’d read.

 _Then why are you still here?_ a little voice that sounded like Victor taunted.

The black lips pressed together, and the book creaked under the pressure of his attention.

In the downstairs hall, a groan and a clank indicated the front door had opened and shut. “John?”

“I’m here,” he replied.

 _Is this what it would be to share a house_ —He cut the thought off before it wounded him too deeply.

Muffled thuds fell on the stairs, and a knock sounded at the door. “May I come in?”

At his response, the door opened.

She entered, radiant, holding a large flat box tied with string. “I found some things for you to try on. Once we get the measure of you, the shop will tailor the rest up and send it later.”

He set aside the book and stood. “Th-thank you.”

“Plain clothes, just as you asked for,” she said, nodding as she set the box on the bed. “Anything you don’t like, you mustn’t keep.”

“When I receive my wages from the dock work, I can pay you.”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “I will hear nothing of the sort. If you feel obligated, pay me by sharing your happiness.” She feigned a serious look. “I warn you, I shall begin collecting at once.”

He dropped his eyes, smiling at the floor. “If you wish.”

“Come, let me show you the library. There are several first editions of which you'll become instantly fond,” she said, holding out her hand.

He reached for her, and then paused.

_This dream has gone on for too long._

“Is something wrong?”

He smiled, his eyes sparkling. “This was a lovely dream in the midst of a never-ending nightmare. I shall cherish the memory for the rest of time. But now it must end.”

“Why?” she asked, growing concerned.

“We’re being foolish.”

“What?” She stepped in front of him and touched his arms. “Why are we being foolish? What’s wrong?”

“Because we are ridiculous together.” He hated saying such things, but couldn’t stop. “What will they say to see us strolling along the riverfront, arm in arm? Will you wear a veil as you take your corpse for an evening's entertainment? They will laugh, and they will point, and we will never be among them.”

He stepped back. She moved forward. Each time he stepped away, she moved with him. Finally, she took his hands in hers.

“When they see us in the street, they will say, ‘What a special man he must be, to have accepted all her indiscretions and failings. What a kind and forgiving heart he must have.’”

“There is nothing to forgive.” He looked down at her, blinking in confusion. “I am a monster, you are not.”

She kissed his palms, then took his face in her hands. She inched closer, the blue eyes filling his world.

“All society shuns me, all society knows I betrayed my best friend, and seduced her fiancee on their wedding night. All society knows I have taken lovers, and never been married. And that is _all_ they know. In their eyes, I am a monster. But I am more than that. I have killed to protect my loved ones, to protect the world. I have done good deeds, and suffered. What has been my reward? To find myself alone, but for my truest friend.” She smiled, and leaned her forehead against his own. “So they will see us arm-in-arm going down the street. The best among them will look at each other and say, ‘There go the most beautiful monsters I’ve ever seen! Look at how deeply they love each other!’”

She kissed his forehead, and the tear that slid down his cheek. “And anything else they say, I have no interest in hearing.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first sex scene! Please let me know what you thought! :D


End file.
